While bark beetle and other hazardous forest health conditions have affected state and private lands, hazardous conditions are often most heavily concentrated on federal lands where a lack of active forest management has allowed the epidemic to spread to catastrophic levels. I welcome the announcement that the Forest Service is engaging state, local and tribal stakeholders to identify areas at increased risk of wildfire, and hope that it leads to swift action to mitigate these hazardous conditions. While this is a positive step, greater forest management reforms are still needed to fully restore our forests back to a healthy natural condition. I urge the Senate to take up our Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act to pass those needed reforms, because we cannot afford to wait to fully address this Western crisis.
Posted on: Tue, 27 May 2014 15:40:55 +0000
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